Pizza and Frosting

Really these two things go together. Just not on the same plate!

Today we made an Italian Buttercream that we will use to ice our cakes tomorrow (eek... a practical test!) It was an adventure in testing my patience. It took two tries to get it done, but I have learned what sugar looks and feels like when it reaches 250 degrees.

Before you get worried, I'm not burned, well not all that burned. Actually the best way to check the temp of the sugar is to let a bubble pop just under your finger and then stretch and roll the little bit into a ball. I did manage to get a little bitty burn on my finger, no larger that a pin prick so I wouldn't call it much of a burn at all!

The reason for the two tries today wasn't so much that the sugar wasn't correct, but a realization that when you are stuck with a group of people sometimes you have to almost walk them through the steps, even if they just sat through the same lecture you did! There is no way to know if they took notes or paid attention...

As a fun treat we made pizza from scratch. The crust was amazing! I shall have to talk to chef about how the recipe can be reduced and still maintain the overall integrity of the dough. Chef was entertained by my inability to make a circle out of the dough, I can make rectangles, ovals, eggs, lopsided circles, I probably could have made a star or a triangle if I'd tried, but a circle... nope. Chef muttered something about needing to go to geometry class and I laughed. Geometry and I don't get along at all!

We had tons of pizza left over so we loaded it on to pans and took off through the culinary floor handing out slices as we made the rounds. One of things I've learned about culinary students is that food, any food... especially food that they haven't had to cook or clean up after is appreciated!